With Windows 7 activations finally beginning to outnumber the older XP and Vista keys that were hanging around for so long, we have noticed quite a few people looking for help in adjusting to the changes. There are some very nice keyboard shortcuts (some old and made prettier, some new) that can help any user to take advantage of the features offered by the operating system and improve workflow and efficiency, whether it’s for work or play.
Moving Windows:
One new feature that is extremely helpful are the keystrokes that can alter the size and orientation of your currently selected window. Just by holding the Windows Key and tapping the right arrow your current window will align to the right of the screen at half the screen size:
In the same manner you can tap the left arrow and the window will align left. This makes moving files from folder to folder much less painful. If you tap the up key while holding the windows key the window will maximize and fill the screen, and the down key will minimize and hide the window.
A Use For the Alt Key:
Switching between windows can be made much easier and quicker with the use of Alt and Tab. While holding the Alt key, press the Tab key once, if you continue to hold the Alt key after letting go of tab, you will notice a little menu will appear, giving you a quick visual representation of all of the windows you currently have open. Each time you tap Tab while holding the Alt key, you will cycle through the listed windows. This saves a bit of time from moving the mouse down to the bottom of the screen in order to click through the tabs.
You can also quickly close a window by holding the Alt key and pressing F4.
Customize Shortcuts:
One of my favorite additions is the ability to create your own keyboard shortcuts to open your favorite programs or files from your desktop without double clicking. Select an icon on your desktop and right click, choose the properties tab:
Once the properties menu opens up, choose the Shortcut tab on the top. Then under “Shortcut Key” click the entry field where it says “None”and choose a key. In this example I chose Firefox and decided to use “F”.
Once you make your selection it should automatically change to “CTRL + ALT + X” (X being the key you chose). Now you can open this program or file without navigating to the desktop and clicking the icon, you can simply use the keyboard shortcut to open it.
With these keyboard shortcuts you can cut down on a lot of searching, clicking and dragging. Say goodbye to hunting down the close, minimize and maximize buttons on your windows!